A tasty morsel—left uneaten

For copyright reasons we are unable to display here the original images published in Creation magazine.

Incredibly, this killer leopard carried this one-day-old baboon high up a tree to safety—out of reach of a pack of hyenas below.

The camera crew who took this photo [in the original printed article] recounted how Legadema—as they’d named her—cuddled the newborn to keep it warm through the long, African night.1

‘It was as if nature had turned on its head completely,’ said one of the film-makers, Dereck Joubert. He explained how baboons are a major food source for leopards—Legadema herself had just killed the baby baboon’s mother. Joubert related that when the newly-orphaned baboon called out, ‘we thought we were going to hear a major crunch and the leopard smacking its lips’. Instead, Legadema gently picked up the infant by the scruff of its neck, and climbed the tree.

Despite the leopard’s efforts, by morning the tiny baboon was dead. ‘We think it was simply too small to survive the night without its natural mother and the sustenance she could provide,’ said Joubert, adding that when Legadema realised the baby had died, she moved on.

Such behaviour, from an evolutionary perspective, makes little sense—even with an overly-active maternal instinct, surely the leopard would not have left such a tasty morsel uneaten once all hope of its reviving had passed?

From the perspective of biblical history, however, this and other evolution-defying examples2,3,4 of suppressed carnivory are a beautiful echo of a pre-Fall world without death or pain, and a reminder of the biblical prophecy of such a time to come (Isaiah 11:6; 65:25).

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Readers’ comments

Jennifer P.,Australia

I just watched the video and listened to the commentary and it is interesting that the man's voice over says something quite Biblical. He notes that it had been a strange night when the leopard had lay down with the baboon. Of course it never makes them (Nat Geo) question for even a moment all their evolutionary presuppositions. I find it all but impossible to watch National Geographic as they continually push their evolutionary fairytales and millions and billions of years and seem only intent on video footage of blood and gore predation events. It is so aggregious that I can't watch it. It is weird that they even displayed this incident and that it was not immediately self censored as contrary to their overwhelming agenda. It makes me wonder if there have been other such events that never see the light of day?

Thanks again for your wonderful website. May God bless you all.

alpha omega,Portugal, 1 December 2012

you are seriously trying to use this against evolution? you see, this is why you're not going to be taken seriously: this has NOTHING to do with evolution. it just shows that man is not the only "rational" animal. that baboon was spared BECAUSE it was a baby. it was a moral and ethical conflict going through the leopard's mind, and that's what's interesting about this story. it just shows that animals aren't just mindless robots that live to kill one another, they can think and feel, even if in much more simplified manners. so the claim that this makes no sense in evolutionary terms actually makes no sense because evolutionary theories don't say that animals kill every other animal they find. this leopard clearly found something that she deemed more troubling than the need to feed at that time. probably out of some primitive respect or remorse she decided NOT to feed upon the baby. either way, this maternal instinct between species has been observed even between humans and other species. so basically, there is nothing in this story that "defies" evolutionary theories, it's just complex beings doing complex things.

David Catchpoole responds

Dear alpha omega,

Hmm, "complex beings doing complex things". Speaking of complex things, did you know that a jumbo jet is made up of over 5 million non-flying parts? No-one would say those pieces came together by accident, to form a cohesive whole entity that can fly. They would credit the designer(s).

Similarly, did you know that a single cell is composed of billions of non-living parts? Yet the whole is alive. How can that be, when we know that only life can give rise to life?

Here's a key statement from the Apostle John:

All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. (John 1:3-4)

Life from life. Incidentally, congratulations alpha omega on being such a creative storyteller. I wonder where you got such creative abilities? Oh yes, I remember. You are a descendant of the first man Adam, created in the image of our Creator. (Genesis 1:27) If only you would give credit to your Creator, the real "the Alpha and the Omega" (Revelation 1:8, 21:6, 22:13), rather than using your creative abilities to actively try to discredit Him. But in the end you only discredit yourself. Poor xxxx you. (Psalm 14:1, 53:1) Why not try Isaiah 55:6-7 instead? That's what this leopard article, and all our other articles, are really about. (Jude 1:22-23)